


Many Branches

by baranduin



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Developing Friendships, Drinking & Talking, Gap Filler, Gen, Interspecies Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 17:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baranduin/pseuds/baranduin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo and Faramir sit in the sun in Minas Tirith and talk. A vignette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Branches

**Author's Note:**

> Written around 2002.

_“If ever beyond hope you return to the lands of the living and we re-tell our tales, sitting by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief, you shall tell me then. Until that time, or some other time beyond the vision of the Seeing-stones of Numenor, farewell!” (TTT, “The Forbidden Pool”)_

* * *

The smooth stone warmed Faramir’s back through the thin layer of his linen shirt as he leaned boneless against the wall on a hot Minas Tirith summer afternoon. Tilting his chin toward the welcome glow of the sun, he furrowed his brow in concentration … that is, in as much concentration as he could manage given the heat and the cool ale he had poured down his thirsty throat. 

When a soft voice asked, “Have you gone to sleep?” he grinned and shook his head.

He said, “No, just ordering everything in my head.”

“Well, let’s hear it then. Surely the Prince of Ithilien needs no great time to memorize a few paltry things.”

At that, Faramir finally opened his eyes, blinking a little as he grew accustomed to the bright blue sky that overarched the Pelennor on this lazy Cermië afternoon. He squinted as he looked out from their perch high in the City’s sixth circle. One deep breath, one sidelong glance at Frodo, and he spoke.

“Merry is your cousin from both your mother’s side of the family and your father’s side of the family … that is, the Brandybucks and the Tooks though how Merry happens to be a Took into addition to a Brandybuck, I’m still out of reckoning.”

“And?”

“Er …” Shifting his eyes rapidly between Frodo’s raised eyebrows and infuriating smirk and the flask of ale set between them on the broad stone parapet, it was not difficult for Faramir to decide upon his next move. Yes, a little delaying action was what was called for while he pondered the hobbit’s rather extravagant family tree. He picked up the flask, the pottery cool and damp against his palm, and drank slowly, but the bitter ale on his tongue did nothing to dispel the fearful tangle of Bagginses and Brandybucks and Tooks. And what about Boffinses and Hornblowers and Bolgers? Weren’t there some of those as well?

A polite “hmph” tugged Faramir from the futile mustering of his thoughts, and he shrugged his shoulders. Curving his lips upward in what he hoped was an ingratiating smile, he asked, “Did I draw close to the mark?”

Frodo tried to look serious; that is, to Faramir’s eyes, it seemed that the hobbit struggled to maintain a polite expression for at least five seconds before dissolving into a fit of laughter. At length, Frodo replied, “Yes, very close indeed,” before a few final snorts and chuckles escaped.

“And?”

“And what?” Frodo asked in a honeyed tone that made Faramir want to smack the incorrigible hobbit’s very smooth cheek. Was it really true that no male hobbit grew hair on his face? Tuck that one away for another time, he thought.

Faramir sighed with a deep sigh that surely gusted out over the short leagues to the bright ribbon of Anduin gleaming at them far below in the peaceful East. Finally, he said, with a formality that he knew was belied by the laughter in his eyes, “Correct me. I would know the truth.”

Before answering, Frodo picked up the flask and drained it. Oh, no, Faramir thought. I’m in for it now. Not that he minded. No, he didn’t mind sitting on the walls of the White City with the hobbit he thought he’d never see again after they parted in Ithilien so many dark weeks before. Sitting here with Frodo under the hot sun and chatting about the most inconsequential hobbity things seemed to Faramir the very essence of all he had fought for all his life without complaint. As he watched Frodo straighten his weskit and fold his hands on his lap, Faramir gave thanks once more for the grace that had delivered Middle-earth.

Frodo cleared his throat and cocked an eye at Faramir. “You were half right, you know. Not surprising, either, given your scholarly background.” 

“Why, thank you.”

“And I did have you at a bit of a disadvantage; I do realize that … I mean, your not having any genealogic charts to consult.”

Faramir saw an opening, and like any good Captain of Men, he darted into it though to his mind, it was a quick, slithering sort of maneuver, subtle-like. “Without having any charts, you could say that I had been deprived of my sight yet expected to find my way through a thicket.”

Oh, dear, he thought immediately and flushed.

This time the “hmph” from Frodo swelled into an absolute “a-hem.” “Oh, really? And have you ever been forced to march somewhere blindfolded?”

Though Frodo compressed his mouth into a straight line and his eyes flashed, Faramir relaxed. Oh, the world was a strange place indeed that he should be put in his place by a creature who came barely farther than his waist. And Faramir liked that very much.

He murmured, “Forgive me?”

Frodo nodded. “Of course … it is our way to, well, tease about things.”

“I know, but still … am I forgiven?”

A quick squeeze of his wrist and the barest nod told Faramir that it was so. When Frodo began talking again, Faramir looked out on Anduin where it flowed past the neat quays of the Harlond, all the while concentrating hard on the eddying streams of family ties that still seemed to swirl round and round in his mind.

“My mother was a Brandybuck, Primula Brandybuck, so there’s that connection with Merry. She had six brothers and sisters—Rory, Amaranth, Saradas, Dodinas, Asphodel, and Dinodas. Erm … though I suppose that’s a little beside the point, you might think. I don’t expect you to memorize all the members of my mother’s family.”

Faramir refused to concede any confusion. Instead, with a wave of his hand, he said, “A large family, I see.”

“Well, yes, that is if you’re considering the entire family, which I suspect might run close to three hundred people all told, if you include the lesser branches and all the second and third cousins … well, not the Sackville-Bagginses of course …”

“Of course, though I know not why.”

“…as I was saying … my mother’s immediate family was rather average in size. I suppose I’m the unusual one, being an only child.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

A sharp elbow in Faramir’s ribs quieted him for the moment, and Frodo continued. “Yes, as I was saying, my mother’s father was old Gorbadoc Brandybuck. He was the Master of Buckland.”

“Ah … an important family.”

“Oh, yes. Quite.”

“And the Took side of the family?”

“Well, I’m getting to that if you’ll allow me.”

Faramir smiled. “Your pardon.”

“Accepted. Gorbadoc married Mirabella Took … by the way, one of the Old Took’s daughters.”

Faramir raised his eyebrows to the sun and inquired, “Why was he called that?”

“Because he was very old.”

“Oh.”

Their combined, rather violent laughter dislodged the flask, and they watched as it rolled across the wall and fell to the next level, shattering against the white walls with a tinkling crash. Frodo and Faramir peered over the edge until they heard the pottery break apart, then shrugged their shoulders and settled back against the warm stone.

Frodo said, “Ah, well … it was empty.”

“Finished it, did you?”

“Yes.”

“Good … continue please … that is, unless you’ve grown too thirsty by all this recitation.”

“I think I can manage. Back to the Old Took, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all … and I would have a clearer explanation of his name.”

“I’m just coming to that, and it’s really very simple, quite simple indeed. He was called the Old Took because he lived the longest of any hobbit in the Shire, at least so far.”

“How long, and what do you mean by so far?”

“Old Gerontius reached one hundred thirty years, but my cousin Bilbo will most likely surpass him. He has only a couple of more years to go.”

“Will he make it that far, do you think?”

Frodo smiled as the memory of Bilbo sitting on a stool in the Hall of Fire came back to him. “Yes, I rather think he will, though he has aged quite a bit in the last few years, very much so …” Frodo’s voice trailed off, and he rubbed his neck absently.

When Faramir spoke, all jesting had gone from his voice, and his words were gentle. “Have you grown tired? I expect I’ve kept you out here far too long.” He reached out one hand and enclosed Frodo’s small fist, stroking the stub of Frodo’s finger with his thumb so lightly that the hobbit sighed and leaned against Faramir.

Frodo said, “I am a little tired, but it’s far too fine a day to go inside. The company is welcome, too.” He looked up at Faramir, and the trust in his eyes caught the man off guard. Though they had spoken freely together, each seeking out the other in the City to fulfill the promise Faramir had made at Henneth Annun that they should learn more of each other if fortune smiled on them, still Faramir had not expected so much trust. But it was a gift, and Faramir accepted it gladly.

When a cool breeze rippled across the greensward behind the Houses of Healing and out over the walls where the man and hobbit were sitting, Frodo shivered lightly though the day was still hot and fine. Faramir wrapped his arm around Frodo and drew him closer, and for a while they sat in comfortable silence. No sound disturbed them—neither bird call from on high nor the cry of merchant drifting up from the lower circles of the City.

How good it was to sit in the sun with a newly-made friend and look out on his home in peace. A quick pang struck Faramir, and he said, “Do you miss the Shire?”

For a long minute, Frodo remained silent, leaning against Faramir’s chest and gazing out at Anduin. At last he murmured, “Yes, I long to see it again.” He laughed, just a quick burst that barely disturbed the curling hair on his head.

“You laugh? Why?”

“Looking at Anduin just now somehow …it reminded me of home, strange as that sounds.”

Faramir tightened his arm around Frodo. “What do you mean? How?”

Shifting about, Frodo looked up at Faramir and smiled. “I was thinking that when you step out your front door, you have a river to look at, and so do I … though admittedly your home and river are a bit grander than what I have back in the Shire.”

Now Faramir joined in Frodo’s quick laughter. “What’s it called, your Shire river?”

“The Water.”

“The Water … I like that. It’s very appropriate. Tell me about it. I want to picture it in my head.”

And Faramir did see it. He closed his eyes while Frodo spoke, and before he knew it, it seemed that he walked by Frodo’s side through the gentle valley of the Water—resting his hand lightly on an alder tree that overhung the narrow stream, looking down into Bywater from the Green Hill country, standing on the banks of the little river and watching it flow into the Brandywine where it met the borders of the Shire. 

After Frodo finished speaking, the two friends were silent for many long minutes though not for lack of anything more to say to each other. So many miles would separate them once Frodo departed for home, and yet Faramir knew that the distance would be as nothing, not as long as they both had heard the gentle song of the Water as it flowed past Bag End on its way to the Baranduin and then to the Sea.

A silver bell chimed.

Faramir cleared his throat—how suddenly it had tightened up—and said, “Come … time for lunch. You’ve earned it.”

As they clambered down from the wall, Frodo asked with a crooked smile, “Have I?”

In answer, Faramir stroked Frodo’s cheek with the backs of his fingers and rested his hand lightly on the hobbit’s shoulder as they walked away from the walls and the green lawn that lay behind the Houses of Healing. After they had gone, only the walls were there to stand watch over Anduin as it rushed on from the busy Harlond toward the foaming Sea, the great river eager to meet the branching waters that mingled there in peaceful harmony.


End file.
